-the prytanes had the prior right to propound the
question, and afterward it became matter of open discussion--they
decided by ballot whether to reject or adopt it; if accepted, it was
then submitted to the assembly of the people, who ratified or refused
the law which they might not originate.

Such was the constitution of the Athenian council, one resembling in
many points to the common features of all modern legislative
assemblies.

XIV. At the great assembly of the people, to which we now arrive, all
freemen of the age of discretion, save only those branded by law with
the opprobrium of atimos (unhonoured) [216], were admissible. At the
time of Solon, this assembly was by no means of the importance to
which it afterward arose. Its meetings were comparatively rare, and
no doubt it seldom rejected the propositions of the Four Hundred. But
whenever different legislative assemblies exist, and popular control
is once constitutionally acknowledged, it is in the nature of things
that the more democratic assembly should absorb the main business of
the more aristocratic. A people are often enslaved by the accident of
a despot, but almost ever gain upon the checks which the constitution
is intended habitually to oppose. In the later time, the assembly met
four times in five weeks (at least, during the period in which the
tribes were ten in number), that is, during the presidence of each
prytanea. The first time of their meeting they heard matters of
general import, approved or rejected magistrates, listened to
accusations of grave political offences [217], as well as the
particulars of any confiscation of goods. The second time was
appropriated to affairs relative as well to individuals as the
community; and it was lawful for every man either to present a
petition or share in a debate. The third time of meeting was devoted
to the state audience of ambassadors. The fourth, to matters of
religious worship or priestly ceremonial. These four periodical
meetings, under the name of Curia, made the common assembly, requiring
no special summons, and betokening no extraordinary emergency. But
besides these regular meetings, upon occasions of unusual danger, or
in cases requiring immediate discussion, the assembly of the people
might also be convened by formal proclamation; and in this case it was
termed "Sugkletos," which we may render by the word convocation. The
prytanes, previous to the meeting of the assembly, always